In my professional reading about spelling instruction I've just come across a great article in the reading teacher by Michelle Newlands (2011) called Intentional spelling: Seven steps to eliminate guessing. Its a great article and I would encourage everyone to read it.

When I was reading the article however I got a great idea for a series on blog posts. So I'm going to write one blog post about each of the seven steps and hopefully give you resources, ideas, and activities for implementing that step in your spelling instruction program. So since this is the first day, I'm going to cover the first rule, Know the spelling rules.

Know the spelling rules

There are over one million words in the English language. How can anyone learn how to spell those words be memorizing them one at a time.

English spelling can seem chaotic or even random at times, for example consider the following words Wednesday (do you here a d in that word, because I sure don't), thumb, know, should, (there are lots of silent letters in English) and of course there are words that look the same like tear and tear that are spelled the same but sound completely different. Not withstanding these examples English spelling does follow some rules. Being able to understand the structure of English spelling can make spelling new and unfamiliar words seem less daunting.

Common spelling rules

I before e except after c - When you think of spelling rules the one that usually comes to mind first is, "i before e except after c." You might not have heard of the next line though, "or when pronounced ay as in neighbor or weigh. Other exceptions are: weird, species, science, sufficient, foreign. To see more exceptions you can go to this Wikipedia article.

Prefixes do not change the spelling of words they are added to. - They don't even change when the prefixes last letter and the first letter of the word are the same. Ex - misspell, impossible, reenter, unlucky, unnoticed. For a list of prefixes, their meanings and words you can visit EPS, go to the bottom of the page under Pedagogical Information and click on Prefix and Suffix word list information. You can also download Little blue men from space game for a prefix and suffix game.

The letter q is always followed by u. - Exceptions: there are several words with foreign origins (often arabic) that don't use u. Ex: burqua, qadi(a muslim judge), qi (often spelled chi, or ki, Chinese for life force.)

In open syllables vowels at the end of the syllable are often long - Ex: belong, protect, table, paper Exceptions: the vowel i may say it's name or it may sound like "ee"

Spelling rules usually have many exceptions. When your teaching a rule don't forget to have some examples of words that don't follow the rule. Teaching the exceptions will greatly increase the number of words that students will be able to spell correctly.

For more complete lists of English spelling rules you can visit the following links: